Filmmaker Jeffrey Katzenberg at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 6, 2022 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
David A. Grogan | David A. Grogan CNBC
Media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg is bullish on technology as he attracts more money for new startup investments. But his venture capital portfolio is far removed from digital media.
Three years ago, Katzenberg had to deal with the high-profile failure of short-form entertainment company Quibi, and now he just raised $460 million for the investment firm WndrCo, which he co-founded with a former partner. Dropbox Sujay Jaswa, Chief Financial Officer.
WndrCo was established in 2016 as a holding company with funding from private investors. Since then, the firm has grown to $1.5 billion in assets under management, investing in a variety of technology companies including Dapper, Databricks, Gemini, and Robin Hood. The company has also established businesses such as digital protection company Aura and Twingate.
Quibi, which Katzenberg founded in 2018, shut down in 2020, just over six months after launching, despite growing disney, Comcast NBCUniversal and AT&T’s WarnerMedia. The service has just 500,000 subscribers six months after its launch, and was expected to have more than 7 million subscribers within a year.
Katzenberg previously co-founded DreamWorks and served as chairman of Walt Disney Studios.
Now at WndrCo, Katzenberg is steering clear of the media market, telling CNBC that the big platforms are the winners. Instead, the company is looking for opportunities in cybersecurity, the future of work and consumer technology.
Jaswa said the goal is to find up to seven venture capital investments and build one to two companies a year. Katzenberg joked about his own vision of the group: “The moon, the stars,” he said. He said that in the long term, he hopes the company backs companies that “are not just a great investment but actually make the world a better place.”
WndrCo has invested in low-code platform Airtable and payroll and compliance company Deel.
At Twingate, WndrCo is betting on virtual private network (VPN) alternatives. The company was founded by WndrCo partners and is backed by Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC. Identity theft protection company Pango is another cybersecurity company backed and built by WndrCo. Pango Chairman Jaswa said the reason for these investments is that many technological innovations are carried out without protective measures.
“All kinds of amazing things happened,” Jaswa said. “However, the other half is protecting people online, but no one is doing anything about it.”
Katzenberg and Jaswa are also waiting on the guardrails of artificial intelligence. Katzenberg said technological advances such as the Internet and now artificial intelligence come at a cost.
“People are anxious about the price of artificial intelligence,” Katzenberg said. “We don’t know. So caution seems appropriate.”
Still, Jaswa is optimistic.
“Major advances in technology are often catalyzed by humans not wanting to do what we have to do,” he said.
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